My Computer Turns on By Itself, Why Is This?

Does your desktop computer suddenly turn on at the same time each day? Does it randomly power-up during the night? Could it be a problem with the computer itself, a weird glitch, a ghost or something completely different?

You are not alone.

Hundreds of people have reported this event. Some claim their computer ‘wakes’ out of hibernation, or sleep mode and others are adamant that it turns on completely of its own doing.

Keyword Cleaner

Open Media Center and click on Tasks > General > Automatic Download Options

Power Button: If your computer is old, could your power button be broken or slightly stuck?

Power Surge: Check that the power socket is not faulty. Try moving to a different location with a different power supply.

Virus: Your computer could have a virus of some sort. Run a full system scan on your computer.

Possible Causes Of Your Computer Turning On By Itself

When we are talking about a computer turning on, we need to assume that we are referring to a computer that is suddenly woken up from ‘sleep’.

Scheduled Updates: Windows operating systems have tasks scheduled to run automatically. Take a look at the ‘task scheduler’ on your computer.

Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Scheduled Tasks.

If yours is set to check for updates everyday at 2 AM, change that time to something less disruptive. Consider changing the frequency also, or alternatively turning the automatic updates off.

A BIOS issue: You can enter the BIOS area by restarting your computer and immediately pressing the Delete key repeatedly until you enter the BIOS Utility Screen.

Once you are in BIOS, go to the Power Options

Scroll down to Wake On LAN and/or Wake On Ring and change the setting to ‘disable’.

Press F10 and then choose YES to save and exit

Your computer should restart and the problem should be fixed.

Alternatively, in BIOS, go to “Power Management” and look at the “Wake Up on Alarm” or Auto Time On. It might be set to a daily event. Simply disable it.

Shutdown Issues: Shutdown problems in Windows can be caused by many factors including incompatible hardware, conflicting programs, or even a damaged driver. As a result, on shutdown, the system automatically reboots itself. Anything compromising the operating system during the shutdown could force this reboot.

To stop this occurring, you need to ‘disable the “restart on system failure” feature.

Then under “Startup & Recovery,” click on Settings and under “System Failure,” untick the box in front of “Automatically restart.”

Why Does My Computer Take So Long To Shut Down?

Is your computer having a really hard time shutting down? Does the hourglass continue to display along with the ‘Windows is shutting down’ message?

Possible Reasons:

You may have a lot of active applications running in the background which all need to be turned off in order before total shutdown.

You may have a virus or malware. Run your anti-virus software

You may have low memory or limited operating space. Try clearing out old files, temp internet files and run the defrag option to fix your computer’s ‘filing’ system.

Your computer could actually be freezing. So you may need to investigate that option also.

Are you absolutely sure that no one in your home turned on the computer, or may have used it after you and didn’t turn it off properly? Are you sure that instead of powering down you accidentally put it into sleep mode?

A computer shouldn’t go from off to on without you triggering it unless it’s something accidental or a glitch. In which case that would be very rare.